The treaty of Versailles greatly humiliated Germany forcing it to accept soul responsibility for the war. Another fault in this treaty was that it did not work as intended. The idea that Germany could ever afford to pay the reparations to full amount was ludicrous as it was already suffering from the defeat of war. These reparations caused runaway inflation throughout Germany. But perhaps the biggest problem of all was that those who created it themselves did not enforce
From then on party leaders were erratic and kept changing, meaning there was little stability in the Conservative party, which made them vulnerable to attack. After Peel was beaten in the Corn Laws crisis, many strong leader figures left with him such as Gladstone. This meant the party was left with the back bench aristocracy who were not all that interested in the wellbeing of the party and let it deteriorate. This was not at all the only problem that the conservatives faced. The truth was that their policies simply did not appeal to the majority of the voting population any more.
Rachel Kay How accurate is it to say Frederick William IV was responsible for the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament? The Frankfurt Parliament was established to create freedom of press, German citizenship for all, fair taxation, equality of political rights and to create a unified Germany. However, countries like Austria greatly opposed it. Frederick William IV could be seen as responsible for the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament because he refused to accept any form of leadership and made it clear he distrusted the ‘gentlemen of Frankfurt’. However, many other factors played a role in the demise of the Parliament such as the fact that they were ill-organised, the lack of popular support and their inability to enforce decisions.
Hitler got away with this because Britain had sympathy for Germany and in 1935 signed a naval agreement with them. France was angry that Germany was re-army but there was little they could do as most countries were doing the same, especially after the disappointment of the Disarmament conference.. The failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s also contributed towards the outbreak of war. It was powerless throughout the 1920s as it was more interested in trying to keep good relations with the other countries so it would have allies against Hitler if he ever attacked. The League also didn’t work because America didn’t join and it was the American President Woodrow Wilson who created it and it would never have worked unless all the nations were allowed to join.
The British could stay there because the United States didn't have an army because the government didn't have any money. Even though these outpost were in direct violation with the treaty of Paris the British kind of said what are you going to do about it and then just stayed. Because of the economic instability states began to go through a period of mass inflation and debt. Because of this the debt of individuals increased causing events like Shay's rebellion. In which a group of farmers led a armed assault on the national government and because there was no army so a local militia had to stop this rebellion.
The limited nature of the revolution was one of the main factors which weakened prospects for democracy, when Ebert was trying to form a government he still had a problem that the radical communists were still looking to turn Germany into a communist state similar to the Soviet Union and thus to put down this rebellion and get support of the army he made an agreement with Groener. The agreement was that the army would support the government if the army and civil service were left unchanged. This was the main reason that democracy was irreversibly weakened, because the civil service and army generals were all right-wing conservatives providing a powerbase for the radical right. This limited democracy because the radical right thought that democracy was weak and indecisive, the radical right though was weakened because the radical left was way more powerful initially in post war Germany, but the radical right would help democracy until the radical left was no longer a threat and would act as ticking time bomb of support. This could have acted as a powerbase for the Kapp Putsch and the eventual rise of the Nazis.
This refusal to agree with each other and frequent 'slating' of the decisions was not the appropriate conditions for a democracy, as many people would be unhappy for a majority of proposed arrangements. It is argued that an autocracy worked better in this situation as one person was able to finalise decisions, avoiding unecessary conflicts in the Reichstag. Therefore, almost by default, Germany appeared to work as a democratic system. The year 1908 marked the event of The Hottentot Election. The Centre Party joined the SPD in voting down government plans for a railway that would ruin the lives of the colonists that had settled down in the way.
Alexander II recognized that Russia was weak, it could not compete with the British or the French in terms of military might or political power, it had a much weaker economy and an out-dated social structure. Alexander saw that the country needed a dramatic overhaul if it was to regain its reputation as one of the leading powers of the world. The need for a stronger military was shown by the disastrous result of the Crimean war, Russia suffered a humiliating defeat and the rest of the world saw that it was no longer a power to be contended with, as it had been at the time of the fall of Napoleon. During the conflict, the British and French had been able to supply and reinforce their troops with greater ease than the Russians, despite the war being fought on Russian soil; this proved to the autocracy that there was a great need for change. Alexander decided that to improve morale within the armed forces, service in the army could no longer be given as a punishment in a court of law, the term of service was reduced by ten years and punishments within the army were made much less severe.
Another thing was there was the weakness of the Weimar government, which played its part. The Weimar government was failing miserably, what with a failed economy, no power, a great depression, unemployment, a weak president, and the rise of terrorism and extremism. The Social Democrats were losing their touch. During the Stresemann years of the 1920s the Nazis couldn’t even get into double figures when it came to seats in the Reichstag. Germany, it looked, was on the rise while Stresemann was Chancellor but the Nazis and their appealing polices were al too good for the people of Germany to refuse and so while the votes for the Social Democrats only increased ever so slightly the Nazi votes were plumiting and with every election they grew and grew.
Why did the Frankfurt Parliament fail to achieve greater German unity? The Frankfurt Parliament was harshly criticized particularly by Marxists who mostly wanted to emphasize internal weaknesses. Engels even called it ‘an assembly of old women’ because all they did was discuss and waste time. However, modern historians place the blame more on external factors such as the role of Austria and Prussia. Firstly there was lack of mass support since the Frankfurt Parliament was mostly made out of middle class people, with only one peasant and no workers.